(*) The followers of the Mac religion have been forced to take a number of
severe blows though. Such as IDE harddisks, MFM floppies, color graphics,
Intel CPU's, and *two* buttons on the mouse..... ;-)
And while we're at it, why not make ProDOS+ able to also deal with FAT
formatted floppies? The Mac can do that, so why not also the Apple
II? Sure, FAT is nowadays an obsolete file system (although not quite
as obsolete as the ProDOS file system...) but it's still widely used
as a file system for portable devices: floppy disks, memory sticks,
CF/SD/etc memory cards, and net disks (the only file system which can
be accessed from Windows, Mac, and Linux is .... the FAT file system).
Imagine a 3.5" floppy directly readable from Windows, Mac, Linux ...
and ProDOS!
At a minimum you'd have to implement FAT16
Yes!
+Long Filename support,
That would be nice, but not necessary. Any long file name created on
some other computer will have a corresponding short filename which can
be used on systems without long filename support, such as MS-DOS v6 and
earlier - and perhaps some future ProDOS+.
The major benefit here is the ability to use the same physical medium
(most likely a 3.5" floppy) on both the Apple and other computers
(Windows and Linux machines, and even the Mac!).
and preferrably FAT32. The code to handle this would easily be larger
than ProDOS 8. Then you'd need to implement MS-DOS style partition map
support, and drivers for any storage device that doesn't provide a
SmartPort 'device' corresponding to the physical volume, which most
don't. Supporting the Superdrive would be simple enough however.
It's easy to dream, but the small amount of RAM on the Apple II does
indeed imply some severe constraints. So why not settle for something
simple? Such as: FAT-16, only short file names, only non-partitioned
media such as floppy disks, and only the Superdrive. Sure, long file
names, FAT-32, partition map suport, and drivers for more modern
storage devices would be nice - however, available memory remaining
for your applications is even nicer..... :-)
As a comparable example, consider the SD card support in the HP-49G+
calculator: it supports only FAT-16 formatted cards and only short
file names. Most modern SD cards cannot be used since they're just
too big - you'll have to find an old SD card of max 256 MBytes. Or
you could use that SD card of 16 MBytes which are delivered with many
digital cameras and which needs to be replaced with a much bigger SD
card anyway - 16 MBYtes is plenty of memory space for that calc.
Nevertheless, that FAT-16 short filenames only SD card support in that
calc allows you to easily transfer files to other computers.